From Ashes
by AleTheHOUSEwife
Summary: COMPLETE! You can't fight your destiny, even if you are House. But in the end, good things come to those who wait.
1. The Chance

**From Ashes**

– – –

by Ale

–

Chapter 1

**The Chance**

Cuddy's fingers clumsily wandered in the dark till she finally took hold of the handset. She picked up while turning on the night light. When the lamp illuminated a dusty, wooden furnished bedroom, she realized she wasn't in her house. Slowly drawing the receiver up to her ear, she cleared her throat, memories from the last hours rushing to her mind.

"Hello?"

_Eight hours earlier_

"You're bleeding."

Foreman had never seen House so devastated. The man slammed his clenched fist upon the counter, leaning against the nurses' station in the hospital hall with all the left side of his body, his other hand seemingly choking the life out of the remains of his right thigh. Foreman stepped back as House turned to him, hissing words that froze the blood in his veins.

"I'm gonna give you a task, as an employee: _get out of my way_."

Foreman shook his head and walked away, leaving House to deal with his own demons.

Hanna was gone and he couldn't do anything about that: he had made her choose amputation over dying down there in the dark, her leg trapped underneath tons of collapsed, immovable concrete. He had actually told her _he_ had made the wrong choice back at the time he was the one whose life was hanging on a thread. He had chosen his leg over his life and that had been like choosing death, because it had made him a worse person, a bitter man submersed in pain. That was how he had her convinced, with Cuddy crying her life out beside him, holding the saw for him, waiting for their patient to choose hope over death.

And still she was dead, because _things just happen_, like you have no control over anything, even if you have made the right choice, cutting off a girl's leg to let her live, and yet she crashes just in front of you on the ambulance, and you can't do a damn for her, because the odds of complications when you perform surgery under a collapsed building are just too high to be taken into serious account. Nobody would suggest to operate in dirt, dust and concrete and now Hanna was dead, as she would have been if he had left her die trapped down there.

House had a look around. Foreman was nowhere to be seen. He took a long breath and wearily exited the hospital, leaving it behind in the cold night. He had left his motorbike at the collapse site and had no cane. He remembered hanging it up somewhere while he was taking care of Hanna's stretcher with the paramedics: he had jumped in the ambulance right after and he had completely forgotten about it until now, when he realized he couldn't make it home without passing out halfway from the unbearable pain that seized him at every step he took. He made it to the first bus stop and collapsed on a bench.

Half an hour later, he was staring at a Vicodin pill resting on his open palm. He was about to give up. His patient was dead even if he had done everything for her. Wilson had him kicked out of the house he had bought for the two of them, because he was trying to piece together his first marriage. And Cuddy was about to commit forever to someone who was so wrong for her that House couldn't even count the reasons for that to be the worst choice she could make. An entire year of sobriety and behaving had given him just more pain, which, if it wasn't physical, was even worse: his whole soul hurt. Nobody believed he had changed. _She_ didn't believe that. So, there was simply no point in keeping up with the challenge of being a different person. House took the pill and flipped it through his fingers, piercing it with his sapphire eyes: at least, he wouldn't have to deal with the leg. He was longing that fuzzy sense of floating in nothingness that the meds used to give him, freeing his mind from the thought of pain. He was about to go back where he came from, to be his old, renegade self.

And then she was there, standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

"House. Are you..."

"Get out of here."

She looked away, her gaze fixed somewhere far from him, but she didn't move. Then she spoke.

House stared up at her from where he was, lying helpless on the floor, his back leaned against the porcelain bathtub. She had left her fiancé, her new house. She had called a nanny to take care of her daughter. She had left what was about to be her future to give him the hundredth chance at change. House thought about not deserving such a bliss from whatever non-existing supernatural entity. Cuddy was there for him, once again. _She was stuck_. With him.

"I love you. I wish I didn't, but I can't help."

House couldn't find any words to answer to that. Instead, he reached out for help, as he should have done long before but never got the courage to. Cuddy helped him up. He met her gaze and saw through the veil of her eyes, looked at her heart spread like a book for him to read. Right there on the threshold, House gently kissed Cuddy's smiling lips, his fingers parting to let the pills fall down on the floor, not to be seen again. That was not his latest narcotic-induced hallucination. Cuddy finally kissing him, giving him the chance he had believed to deserve since he'd gotten out of Mayfield, that was all real. She had just pulled him from the brink of despair. Once more.

She helped him to the bedroom and started cleansing the open wound on his left shoulder, pouring fresh water on his drained skin. She padded his face with a wet towel, taking the dirt away alongside the exhaustion of his broken soul. House stared up at the ceiling in hope to find some further meaning, then realizing it was all there in front of him: the woman he had loved and chased for two decades had made her decision. Cuddy ran her fingers down from House's shoulders to his chest, feeling the muscles pulsating underneath the skin. Then she slipped down to his hips and unbuttoned his pants. House felt chills coming down his spine. She was not going _there_. Yet, she was. Cuddy gently caressed his scar, the hollow well of tense, dead flesh where his muscle and his previous life had once been. She touched the hole in him with her warm lips and that was like an awakening for him.

He picked her up as she wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders and he managed to reach the bed, where she rested her as delicately as he could. He was now bending over her and he could see pearly drops of sweat adorning the crook of her neck, her cleavage partially hidden in the shadows the soft lights reflected from her collarbones onto the pale skin. House could see her breasts lift as she inhaled, parting her lips in short range breaths. She was his last chance at salvation.

"Hello?"

Cuddy fell silent for a few seconds, listening to the voice at the other end of the line.

Then she dropped the receiver, which slided down to her lap.

––


	2. Blessed

Chapter 2

**Blessed**

House lied awake in his bed, staring aimlessly at the moving shadows the first lights of daybreak sketched on the ceiling, sneaking their way through the pulled curtains. Cuddy was quietly breathing in and out, asleep at his side, her head tilted to the right to meet his cheek, which her loose curls were gently stroking. He raised his shaking hands, staring at them as if it was the first time ever, palms facing his eyes: those hands had touched her body, caressed her face, head, lips. He was still incredulous: he didn't deserve to have such an angel asleep next to him. How could she bear his mere presence, after all he had said and done to her, was a mystery to his tirelessly working mind. He had been about to give in and she had come to pull him back. House couldn't help but think he didn't deserve her, yet he was conscious he had come a long way from who he used to be. He had gone through hell and back: Cuddy had always been there for him, but that miserable addict would have poisoned her with his mere touch. Now it was different.  
House slowly sat up, trying not to make noise, and sneaked out of bed. He grabbed some clean clothes from a drawer and limped to the bathroom. Few minutes later, insomnia had definitely won over him: he went to the wooden closet in the hallway and found an old cane probably buried there for years, underneath a pile of clothes, shoes and god knew what else.  
The motorbike took off in a roar and House flavored the taste of speed and the clear-headedness it had always given him.  
He needed to think about what had happened between the two of them. Before seeing her awake, he had to decide whether or not he could allow himself to accept the risks connected with letting her in his life. Because what he feared most was to break her, make her go away somehow and this time forever.  
He found himself pulling the brakes in the parking garage of the hospital, his eyes registering the presence of the well known sign designating his own handicapped park space. Flashing a glance at the white matchstick wheelchair on dark blue background, House took off his helmet and pulled the cane from the special support at the right side of the vivid orange Honda bodywork. Then, he reached the elevator and found himself standing in the hospital hall once again, after those few hours in which his whole life had taken a turn for the worse and had then come back to the start.

"Hey. What are you doing here?"

Wilson came out from nowhere, wearing his scrubs, covered in blood and dirt. A surgical mask hanged from his left ear.

"Nothing."

"Are you..."

"Yes, for god's sake!"

Wilson stepped back. He knew House's patient had died the night before and Foreman had told him he was devastated: he had been trying to reach him for the whole night, but he wasn't answering the phone. And now he was there. Wilson wondered if House was there to help, but that seemed unlikely. The ER was still in hectic activity, since the victims from the collapse site had joint the other nightly patients coming in at the usual rate for a level one trauma center. House didn't seem in so bad a shape as Foreman had told Wilson hours earlier: he looked quite neat and he seemed to have control over himself, which was very unlikely of him, given what he'd just gone through. Wilson wondered what it could be that had House so... fine. He just hoped he hadn't relapsed in his old habit of drowning despair in narcotics. The exact moment the oncologist took a deep breath to finally ask his friend if he was ready to give him a hand in the ER, the man had already disappeared in thin air.  
Few minutes later, House exited the elevator as the automatic door shifted to let him through. The fourth floor was deserted, everyone flailing and rushing downstairs, between crushed ribcages and stitched cuts. He pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked the glass door to his office. Everything seemed to be asleep, immersed in the purple and violet, iridescent glares of the first lights of day, which gave an immanent sense of quiet magic to anything his eyes captured: the clean, empty whiteboard waiting its next mystery to be solved, the books resting in their shelves, the silent turntable lying still.  
House took the ball from his desk and bounced it once on the carpeted floor. When the companion of his lonely epiphanies bounced back into his open palms, he wrapped his hands around it as to pretend he was covering some sort of secret with his fingers. He limped his way to the lounge chair beside the glass panel facing the corridor and just collapsed on it, flavoring that incredible lack of pain he was experiencing for the first time in years. His mind started going back to his personal midnight hour, when Cuddy had showed up at his doorstep to pull him back from the brink of failure once again.  
He recalled the concerned look in her eyes when she had helped him standing up, and then the utmost tenderness in her smile when he had tossed the pills away to hold her tight to his chest and kiss her lips with the delicacy you use with a blossom. Maybe that wasn't bad. Maybe he could seize the day and make something good out of it. Maybe, for once, he deserved that possibility. No, he wasn't planning on a safety escape: this time it had to work out, because he could feel he was tired of being always on the wrong side of life. He wished he would never hurt her, do her wrong somehow. He wished to find the courage to tell her he loved her when he would go back home. He just _had_ to.

––

* * *

a/n:Next chapter's called "Mirror, Mirror" and something's going to happen in House's office. I guess you might want to get prepared for this because it is the turning point of the story, which sets all the upcoming events in a certain way.


	3. Mirror, Mirror

––

Chapter 3

**Mirror, Mirror**

"You a doc or something?"

House came back from his daydream and stared up just to see a thin, beat-up teenage boy standing in the doorway, addressing him with a shaky finger pointing at his chest. He scowled.  
"Get out of here. ER's downstairs."

The boy lowered his stare and his voice started to tremble heavily as he nervously slipped his hands into the pockets of his patched, oversized jeans. He started swaying back and forth.  
"I must be wrong then."

House noticed the purple circles under his eyes, the sweaty skin on his sickly pale forehead and the short-range jolts shaking his whole body. He was thinner than a damn toothpick. It didn't take more than a second to House to realize the boy was a junkie. _God dammit_. He felt a weird sense of pity for that young man standing next to him, overwhelmed by what was clearly a withdrawal crisis. House wearily stood up, leaning on his cane. The boy suddenly stepped back, frightened.

"Hey, kid. It's ok."  
House lowered his tone, trying to sound softer and somehow reassuring. He had to do something. The boy flashed him a horrified, teary glance. House approached him as slowly as he could.

"What's your name?"

"Joe."

"Ok Joe, now listen to me. I need to have a look at you."

Joe started mumbling at himself, shaking his head.

"No. _No_..."

"I'm not gonna hurt you."

Joe started to move backwards, hands to the wall, covering the perimeter of House's office as to find a safe corner to curl up in. He was getting even more nervous, frantic words flowing out of his swollen lips.

"No... I'm ok. I'm..."

"You're in withdrawal."

Joe's back hit the whiteboard, which weaved unsteadily in a metallic noise. He threw a frightened look over his shoulders, then turned back to face House, who was keeping himself at a safety distance, caring not to invade the boy's delicate space.

"Joe. You need to let me help you."

Joe's hands slipped underneath his oversize t-shirt. He was clearly in search for something. A knife. Or his fix. House's heart skipped a beat. No, that was not the right time. The right week. The right _fucking_ day. He'd already had enough. Joe seemingly found what he was looking for.

_For god's sake. What the hell is he...  
_House slowly moved towards.  
_Wrong decision._

"Step back! I said step back you son of a bitch!"

Five feet from where House stood, Joe was holding a shiny, black semi-automatic, pointing straight to the left pocket of his favorite dark blue shirt. That was ridiculous, the boy couldn't possibly know how to fire a gun.

"Hey. Put it down. You're sick, you're gonna pass out in no time."

"I don't..." Joe's voice was uncontrollably trembling now. He looked upset and even surprised at his own tears starting streaming their way down his sweaty features. He went on, nervously. "Getting clean... It hurts. I don't want that. I need my dose."  
The boy seemed more vulnerable now. House seized the moment.

"I'm going to take care of you. You'll be fine."  
House took a step forward, holding out his hand to a devastated, young human being who was starting to dangerously remind him of himself and his own demons. An addict. At the end of his rope. Holding a gun coming from god knew where, which he clearly couldn't use.  
"Come on. Take my hand."

Joe slowly lowered the gun, his hand shaking even more at the thought of retreat.  
Then someone busted the door open.

"Hands up, you son of a bitch!"

House turned back just to see the nearest cop trying to push him aside.  
But then he heard _it_ coming in. Through his own skin. All went fuzzy and then dark as he fell to the floor.

Joe dropped the gun.  
"You're all the same."

* * *

a/n: cliffhanger! *sits down, waiting patiently for insults to come.* Spoiler: from now on, this story is all about Cuddy. And by that I mean...


	4. Senseless

– –

Chapter 4

**Senseless**

Cuddy dropped the receiver. She could see herself standing up in slow-motion, walking out of House's empty, dark bedroom and then to the bathroom, where she had left her clothes from the night before. Nothing could break the defense barrier created by her senses. She couldn't see, touch or smell anything. She couldn't hear a sound. Every cell of her body was numbed, as if she was keeping herself on hold, waiting to breathe again when she would see him _again_.

Maybe she was just overreacting to the news, maybe nothing bad had happened to House. But Wilson's voice sounded weird, like he was keeping something from her, something he couldn't tell her from the other end of the line. Something she would have to see with her own eyes. She tried to concentrate on the fact that her presence was needed anyway: who should they call if not her, when a junkie caused mayhem in the ER? That was it. Wilson was on call that night, therefore he had to inform her: there was nothing to worry about. And House could've been somewhere else: there were no reasons for him to be at the hospital. Yet, something told her exactly where House was. And why Wilson sounded so worried. Something had happened to him.

Lost in the restless stream of her own thoughts, Cuddy found herself facing the main entrance of her hospital. People were being escorted out of the ER by nurses and other doctors, ambulances waiting in the parking lot to transfer them somewhere else. Three men in black leather jackets with the Princeton Police Department logo on the back were surrounding the access lawn to the main building, using some plastic, striped red tape that creeped the life out of the Dean of Medicine.

It was the familiar tape of her childhood nightmares: her mother used to be a great fan of crime shows. When bedtime came for her little daughters, Arlene would kiss them goodnight and flick the switch with a smile. But right after the door closed, Lisa and her younger sister Julia would crawl out of bed to follow the fair blue glares the tv projected on the walls of the second floor hallway. Holding hands, the little girls would go few steps down the stairs and sit there, hidden in the dark, leaned back to the cold wall, to get their forbidden, nightly share of thrill. They loved those shows, although they knew their night was definitely over: Arlene had never found out about their secret, and they had agreed to confort each other after every nightmare. They had grown up with their parents thinking they were the only kids in the world who'd never had a bad dream.

Cuddy rushed to the main entrance and slipped underneath the tape, coming out on the other side. The delimited one. The crime scene.

"I'm doctor Cuddy, Dean of Medicine and Chief Administrator."

She shook hands with a tall, very thin man with a gentle smile.

_Oh my god, it's like those damn shows._

"Doctor Cuddy, I'm Captain Todds. We need you to come inside for some legal formalities."

The man led the way into the hall of the hospital, abruptly stopping by the nurses station to give way to a stretcher being rushed to the nearest elevator. Cuddy froze.

"Captain Todds."

He turned back.

"Is someone hurt?"

He escaped eye-contact.

"Captain Todds, _is someone hurt?_"

"We need you here, doctor Cuddy. Let the EMT do their job."

"This is not an answer!"

_Ok. relax._

She was losing it and that was of no good. To anyone.

But the man didn't seem angry or anything. He just seemed condescending. And that was what scared her the most. He took a deep breath.

"Doctor Cuddy, I'm afraid you can't go anywhere. We need to let my men do their job. The fourth floor is being cleared right now."

At the sound of his words, she vanished.

_The fourth floor._

Cuddy mentally thanked god for being in her scrubs as she rushed to the stairwell. She couldn't handle any more time waiting for an elevator to reach the ground floor, so she just climbed up the stairs, step by step, ignoring the painful sting in her chest, which was telling her she would have had to warm up before the run. But that wasn't her morning jogging session, it was a rush to the answer. She believed now all of her instincts had been telling her that something had happened to House. Wilson's weirdly pitched voice at the phone, the condescending look in the Captain's eyes, House's own absence from the apartment. He didn't have anywhere else to go: it seemed obvious now that he'd come to the hospital, the only place where he seemed to get some control back over his ninety-miles-working brain.

Cuddy hit the safety door to the fourth floor with both hands and pushed, bursting it open with a whooshing noise. She came out in the deserted hallway and stopped at the threshold for the fraction of a second. Her senses were still obnubilated, as she watched herself walking to only light in the whole floor, coming from House's office. She grabbed the handle, looking through the glass panel, her eyes trying to make some sense out of the scene playing inside the room.

Wilson, crouched on his knees, turned back to stare up at her. Desperately. Then, he slowly stood up, covered in blood on his hands, shirt and coat. When he moved to her, she could see House's body lying on the carpeted floor of his office, which was now soaked in a puddle of ruby-red liquid inexorably expanding. That was when the wall of her self-defense barrier went down in a thousand pieces, hitting the bottom of her now fully aching soul.

– –

a/n: sorry for the long hiatus, guys. University is killing me right now, so I'm gonna have to slow down a bit with the updates. But there's a lot to come...  
Next chapter is going to be very painful for all involved, and House's mother will pay a visit to us as her presence will be needed, you'll see why. Plus, there's still a big, big upcoming surprise that'll keep you guys' hearts warm as things slowly come back to normal for our characters. Stay tuned. Oh, and don't forget to let me know if you like the shape I'm giving to this story...

xoxo

alex


	5. The Sound Of Silence

– –

Chapter 5

**The Sound Of Silence**

–

"House..."

Cuddy fell on her knees beside the unconscious man lying on the carpeted floor. She rubbed his forehead, wiping the small drops of sweat off his pale skin.  
The three men from the EMT had lifted the stretcher and were now waiting for something in the back of the room, their expressions hidden in the shadows of the pulled curtains. Wilson was standing beside her, looking down at House's body, covered by a silver, bright thermal blanket. Why was no one doing anything?

"House... _House_..."

She took his face in her hands, as chills went down her spine at her fingertips touching the scruff on his cheek.

His eyelids trembled. One second later, he opened up his eyes.

"House, look at me. I'm here..."

He blinked, then fell back in the darkness of his own abyss.

"Oh, god..." Cuddy turned back to her friend, in despair. "Wilson! Do something!"

She was crying out loud.

No one moved.

Wilson spoke, but his voice was nothing more than a whisper.

"Cuddy. He's bleeding out."

She pulled the blanket from House's body and threw a look over his chest and abdomen. There was blood, blood all over. It came from a large, darker hole in his once blue shirt. _Oh, god.  
_Her eyes filled with tears.

"House, I'm here, I'm here..._I'm_..."

She rushed to the wound and pressed it with bare hands, frantically yelling at a silent man that had been hers for one night. Nothing seemed to stop the rush of blood: she could see it taking over her effort, slipping through the spaces between her fingers.

"House! _This-is-not-happening!_"

She pressed even harder, blood spilling everywhere on her naked arms. She couldn't fight back that stream.

"_Look-at-me_! Look at me! House..."

She saw his blue globes piercing hers. She softened her tone, trying to sound somehow reassuring.

"Hey. I'm here, you're gonna be fine..."

Her voice broke, tears spilling down to his chest. His lips parted and a drop of blood elapsed from the right corner of his mouth and down his cheekbone, then to the floor, drawing a red line to sign its path.

"I'm sorry..."

_What was he sorry about?_

"It's ok, it's ok, you're back..."

Cuddy kissed his forehead, sustaining the back of his neck with one hand, the other rubbing his cheek. She had another look at the wound, then she saw Wilson's tears. And the EMT quietly waiting in the shade. She realized.

"House..."

Her voice melted in a whisper.

He flashed a desperate glance at her. He knew as well.

"It... hurts."

He was scared. Frightened. Sorry. Whatever was tormenting his soul, it had to be worse than the actual pain from the wound: he had left her alone to come here and think instead of talking to her, but he had ended up meeting his destiny. Cuddy could see the guilt in his eyes.

House's blue globes filled in mist. He was almost there.  
She couldn't let it go in front of him. She owed him that. Cuddy swallowed the upcoming stream of fear and raised a smile, then she took his head in her lap and felt his tears wetting her cottoned pink shirt, now fully dipped in the blood of the man she had loved for twenty years. She rubbed his pepper hair.

"I know it hurts. Don't be scared."

Grinding his teeth, House held out a whisper, softened even more by his lips pressed to her chest.

"I'm not... Don't go."

But then he started sobbing heavily, his right cheek pressed to her chest to choke the pain, along with his fist clenched on her cottoned sleeve. He was shaking badly.  
_He's falling out of consciousness. Again. _  
Cuddy's features distorted in sorrow as she stared up at the ceiling before beding over to speak to House one last time, wrapping her free arm around his shoulders and rocking him gently.

"Hush. It's ok now. I love you."

House exhaled a long breath. His eyes sweetly glanced at hers as he moaned something about making breakfast for her, taking the day off. His lips turned upwards. Then the last drop of blood spilled on the floor and his eyes closed.

– –

_On September 20, 2010, at 5:37AM, I was dispatched to an Armed Robbery call at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, 33 Washington Road, Princeton, NJ 08544. Upon arrival, at 5:50AM, I met Dr. James Evan Wilson, clinic physician-in-charge for the night, DOB, 1/19/1966. He referred about a robbery attempt brought in at around 5:30AM by a white male, aged approximately 18, demanding for drugs. I immediately requested rescue and ID-Unit to respond._

_While waiting for rescue, I asked what had happened. He said that it had happened less than ten minutes before I had arrived. The boy had come in asking for a dose of narcotics for an alleged back pain, and because dr. Wilson would not believe him he had pulled a knife and tried to stab him, ending up hurting the hospital guard and taking his semi-automatic, then disappearing up the stairs. Dr. Wilson said that all the patients in the ER had witnessed the scene. I immediately requested a description._

_He described him as white male of ill, pale complexion, 6' feet tall, weighing about 120 pounds with short black hair. He had on a long sleeve black shirt and fade blue jeans, both oversized. He had left the hospital hall and then reached for the stairs with no one going after him for at least ten minutes, as the night guard was wounded and Dr. Wilson was taking care of him after calling 911._

_Rescue Unit 014 arrived at 5:56AM, officers Doe, Jill and Ross were directed to the upper floors. I was taking official record of dr. Wilson's deposition, when the other agents notified me that they had caught the aggressor, who had shot a man to death inside an office on the fourth floor. I went to personally check on the victim and arrest the aggressor. Dr. Wilson identified the victim as Dr. Gregory House, DOB, 6/11/1959, white male, approximately 6.6' feet tall, weighing 170 pounds. Head of Diagnostic Medicine at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, dr. House was fatally injured in his own office while officers Doe, Jill and Ross, the only witnesses, were trying to make the aggressor drop his weapon. EMT ID Unit E-8 arrived and verified the entity of the fatal gunshot wounds to the chest of the victim. _

_I then left and came back to the ground floor, waiting for the hospital administrator to come to the premises. When dr. Cuddy, Dean of Medicine and Chief Hospital Administrator came in, she requested to see the victim first. _

_EMT did not move the victim, being accountable to dr. Wilson's orders to make him confortable where he was to avoid further bleeding, and just provide a thermal blanket: dr. House briefly regained consciousness before dying from his wounds at 6:07AM. Doctors Wilson and Cuddy called time of death._

_Signature: Captain Tim Todds, Princeton Law Enforcement._

_Countersignature for authenticity: Dr. Lisa Cuddy, PPTH._

_Lt. Sarah Stevenson, Unit-109 from the PPD Public Safety section, notified of the incident. A copy of the report has been forwarded to her for further investigative follow-up and final disposition of the case._

– –

Cuddy dropped the pen on her desk.

Wilson sat on the couch, thoughtfully rubbing his forehead. He was trying to behave, she knew he wouldn't let anything out until he was sure she was fine.

"Here we go, Captain."

She handed the sheet to Todds, hoping the shaking in her hands didn't show too much.

"Thank you for your time, doctor Cuddy. My condolences."

They shook hands, then he left.

Wilson and Cuddy remained silent, avoiding eye-contact. Neither of them would bear to see the despair in each other's eyes, as if they were looking at themselves through a mirror.

She stood up and took her briefcase.

"I have to go home, Rachel's going to wake up soon. I'll see you later."

Wilson stared up at her.

"Sure."

– –

a/n: told ya' guys... Thank you all for your reviews, I hope you are not too upset at me. I promise better times will come. There's much ahead for Cuddy and Wilson, and things have to get very, very bad before they get better. But they will, eventually. This death is not gratuitous, it was never intended like that. There is a plan for our characters: they're part of something bigger, even if you can't see it now. It's already on its way! We will miss House as the story unfolds. But there will be something about him that is not lost. I promise. Bear with me. :)

xoxo

alex


	6. Fairytales

Chapter 6

**Fairytales **

"Mommy!"

Rachel was watching her favorite cartoon. When she had seen Cuddy cracking the door open, she had jumped to her feet and rushed to meet her mother's arms.

Cuddy flavored the fresh smell of her daughter, dipping her nose in Rachel's soft hair. She pressed the toddler to her chest, trying to behave.

"Hi, baby. Mom's home."

She put the little girl back on the floor. Rachel disappeared down the corridor with a giggle. Mommy was home.

Cuddy pulled her hair up. Thank god she'd been keeping a change of clothes in the back of her office. It seemed like nothing had happened, as her flowered dress waved in the breeze coming in from the opened windows of her living room. Marina, Rachel's nanny, came from the kitchen.

"Good afternoon, doctor Cuddy! You look so tired. I heard about that collapsed crane in downtown Trenton, it had to be a nightmare..."

Cuddy flashed a glance to her and tiredly plopped on the couch. She was a nice woman, very trust-worthy. They were lucky to have her.

"It was."

Marina came closer and patted her shoulder.

"Have you already eaten?"

"I'm ok, thanks Marina. I'm just very tired. You can have the rest of the day off, you've done too much for us already, sleeping over and all..."

Cuddy tried to raise a smile. But instead she just managed to burst in tears. Marina didn't wait a second to come and sit beside her. She had never seen doctor Cuddy showing so many emotions, and that was frankly reassuring, in its sadness. She was human after all. Thank god Rachel was playing somewhere in her room.

"It's ok. You can cry how much you need."

Marina held her tight, as she sobbed hard. She was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable when Cuddy finally calmed down and stared up at her, visibly embarrassed.

"I am so very sorry... I just need to rest, relax..."

She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, pulling a napkin from the paper box on the coffee table. That had been _so_ stupid.

Marina raised a smile. It was fine, at least she was crying, whatever it was about. Cuddy seemed to read her mind and the curiosity in her eyes. But that was just too much. She wasn't ready to share the news with anyone now. She could have been upset by the whole thing at the construction site, and it would be fine to be. She had spent the previous day underneath tons of collapsed concrete, fully dipped in dirt, blood and death. That had to be enough for Marina. Cuddy stood up and stretched her dress.

"So. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Sure. Same time as always?"

"Same time as always. And... thank you."

Cuddy smiled sincerely at Marina. She was discrete. And reassuring.

"You're welcome. Take care."

Cuddy closed the door behind her and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. The cold liquid refreshed her dry mouth and sore throat. She'd been crying too much, her whole airways hurt now. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, she was engaged to Lucas Douglas, a nice, caring man she had never loved. Eighteen hours earlier she was yelling horrible things at House while helicopters hovered above their heads and sirens echoed in the distance. Twelve hours earlier she had left her fiancé and was declaring her love to House in the bathroom of his apartment, pulling him back from the brink of addiction once more and hopefully forever. Seven hours earlier House was bleeding to death in her arms. She felt a lump in her throat. Not again.

"Mommy!"  
Rachel called her from her room. It was like salvation. She left the glass on the counter and reached the little girl in her bedroom.

The toddler was holding out a baby doll. Cuddy took it in her hands and sat on the carpet with her daughter.

"We play?"

"Sure, honey."

"You visit."

Cuddy couldn't help but smile. Rachel knew very well she was a doctor. She pulled the toy-stethoscope from a giant, colored box and wore it.

"Is she your baby?"

"Yes!"  
"What's her name, sweetie?"

"Carrot cake."

_Carrot Cake._ Ok.

Cuddy hid a smile: Rachel had a thing for carrot cakes. She placed the plastic stethoscope on the doll's chest.

"Your baby has a cold, Rachel. You need to wrap her in a warm blanket."

The toddler jumped up and pulled the woolen blanket from the doll's stroller, then she plopped back down on the carpeted floor.

"Blanket, mommy."

Cuddy held the baby doll as Rachel clumsily wrapped her up, and helped her taking it in her arms. Holding the doll to her chest with one arm, Rachel climbed up her mother's crossed legs and placed herself in her lap, cuddling up with knees propped to her chest. Cuddy leaned back to the wall, rocking her child with arms wrapped around her tiny shoulders, whispering a gentle lullaby at the little girl's ear. Rachel sobbed. Cuddy quit rocking her and bended over to look her in the eye.

"Baby, are you sad?"

"No mama."

"Then what is it? Mom's here with you."

"You sad."

_You sad._

Yes, she was sad. Very. She couldn't hide that to a child. She kissed Rachel's head.

"Yes, I am."

"Oh."

Rachel dropped the doll and stared up at her, eyes wide open.

"Why?"

She had to expect this. Cuddy fell silent for a second, trying to find a soft way to drop the news for the first time, and in the proper way for a child who hadn't even lost a goldfish yet.

"I lost a friend of mine today."

Rachel got even more interested.

"Where he go?"

Very good question. Philosophical, in its own way.

"I don't know. That's why mom is sad."

"You find him. I help. We go."

Rachel jumped to her feet and grabbed the door handle.

She had intended it literally. It might be even less painful than what she had thought. Taking her three-year-old through the whole Afterlife business was a bit too much right now. Cuddy stood up and picked the little girl up.

"How about a bedtime story? So we can have a nap together in mommy's bed?"

She reached her bedroom and placed Rachel on the soft mattress, covering her with up with a cottoned blanket. She sat down and laid beside her, rubbing the girl's cheek and hair. Rachel seemed sleepy, but she had some light in her eyes.

"We find your friend, you happy. Right mama?"

Cuddy took a deep breath. The kid was tough.

"Sure, sweetie."

"Love it. What's his name?"

"It's... Sweetsauce."

"Funny!"

Rachel giggled. That nap was going to be hard.

"How is he?"

Cuddy closed her eyes.

"Mama. Wake up."

Rachel patted her cheek.

"Yes, honey. I'm here."

"How is he?"

"He's strong and tall. Like a prince from the tales. And he has blue, blue eyes. Like the sea. Remember aunt Julie and I, when we took you and Jack and Sarah to the beach last month?"

"Yes. I like the sea."

"Me too, baby. A lot."

Rachel blinked and yawned. She was about to give in. Cuddy stroked her head and kissed her silky cheek.

"You know what? We can find my friend if we close our eyes now and think of him together."

Rachel raised a smile.

"I think hard. I see the prince. I say hello, come back, mama love."

Cuddy felt tears approaching. She had to make it fast.

"Thank you, Rachel."

The girl finally closed her eyes. She watched her fall into the sleep of innocence.

_If you see him._

– –

a/n: uhm. Drama and fluff get along quite well. I'm pretty satisfied with this experiment. Plus, I don't get to write Rachel very often and I figured Cuddy couldn't just shut herself away in her house after what happened, because she has a child to take care of. Blythe House is still going to come, I just had to defer her visit, this chapter was unexpected as it wasn't in the original draft. As you have probably noticed, I'm trying to update regularly these days, so you can read as much as possible before things at uni get more hectic than how they are already.

See you next chapter, which has a quiet, somber mood as Wilson and Cuddy say goodbye to their friend.


	7. If I Leave Before You

– –

Chapter 7

**If I Leave Before You**

Wilson dropped the cup in the sink and leaned on the counter, palms spread on the cold metal, staring out of the slightly open window, leaving the breeze stroke his closed eyes, tired from all the tears being kept secret even to himself. He couldn't cry. He had tried very hard but he just couldn't spill a single teardrop.

He would have never imagined such a reaction to the death of his best friend, an unbelievably unfair, sudden event that had all of them shaken. He could still see the scene in House's office, when he had burst in with the PPD guy. The other cops were dragging outside an upset, traumatized boy in handcuffs. He had met his gaze for a second, and all he had seen was an expression of the utmost disbelief, as if that young man couldn't even conceive the idea of killing someone. _That's what you do for the drugs_, Wilson thought bitterly. _Then you come back to reality._

The moment the agents had pushed Joe out of sight, Wilson had seen his best friend's eyes shining in the dark. House was still conscious when he had crouched beside him to have a look at his wound. It was bad. Very bad. Judging by the lack of exit holes, the one bullet was stuck somewhere in his abdomen, where its run must had been stopped by the breastbone. But what had immediately caught Wilson's attention was a huge hole spilling fluids and blood on the left side of House's chest, right below the nipple. Joe had shot him short-distance, the bullet had penetrated House's tissues and muscles at the top of its strength. He was bleeding badly from the wound and oozing from his mouth, indicating a possible damage to his stomach and left lung. Wilson had tried to stop the bleeding with bare hands while waiting for the EMT guys, but he had ended up covered in blood, realizing there was nothing they could do to save House. Their gazes had met for a second, and House had raised this inexplicable, painful, distorted smile that Wilson had yet to decipher.

That was it.

Wilson realized for the hundredth time that he could easily go through the whole story without any sign of breakdown. He had been upset, he had cried alone in the restroom, washing away his friend's blood from his forearms, he had been angry at that stupid son of a bitch spending the night in his office. He had still to bury him, mourn him, miss him. Right now, though, he couldn't feel anything but indifference. Yesterday and today were like opposite banks of a river. A fucking river separating what was before from what was now. They shared no link, no contact of any sort could be made between them.

The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"It's me."

Cuddy. The poor gal was waiting for him to give her a sign he was still alive, safe and sound. He hadn't called her in two days. She had finally given up and called him herself. Wilson finally spoke.

"Is everything ok? You need help with paperwork?"

Paperwork. What an _idiot_.

The other end of the line was silent. He had to pretend, somehow.

"Cuddy. Are you...how... you ok?"

Syntax could be a real bitch, those days.

"Yeah."

Her voice was steady, somber but still very strong, very Cuddy-ish. He felt reassured he wasn't the only one trying to imitate what House had always managed to do so easily: acting indifferent.

"Right then. Is there anything you..."

"Forensics called. I scheduled an appointment."

"I see."

"They, uh, need us to sign the papers."

They were done with the autopsy. Routine, they said. They needed their medical team to report personally on the death. Still, they wanted the two physicians whose hands had been actually covered in blood. Their signatures. To certify their friend had died before their helpless eyes.

Wilson held out a breath.

"Ok, I'll be there."

"Good... bye then."

"Bye."

Wilson needed to call someone. For real. He had postponed that one call above all the others, hour by hour. But he had to do that, and he thought he had to do it while he could still drop it coldly.

He dialed the number.

"Hello?"  
"Mrs. House? It's James Wilson."

"Oh, dear, It's nice to hear you!"

He couldn't do that on the phone. That was... too much. Wilson pulled the receiver away from his ear and pressed the microphone to his open palm. He froze there for a moment, then he went ahead.

"Blythe, there's something I need to tell you."

He felt her concern even though they were tens of miles apart. He had done it several times. The gunshot from that guy five years earlier, the hospitalization and coma after the bus crash, the psychotic break and institutionalization just twelve months earlier. He felt that was his secret calling, haunting him after his workday: delivering bad, very bad news to people.

Blythe House's voice came out in a whisper.

"Is he ok?"

Wilson hesitated for the fraction of a second, heart-wrenched. He thought somehow that hesitation was the last drop of serenity for the woman on the other end of the line.

"No. Something's happened."

"James..."

"There was an armed robbery inside the hospital, he was in his office..."

"James, _is my son ok?_"

Her voice was starting to get dangerously high-pitched. Wilson's features distorted for a moment as he tried to find the words.

"No, he's not."

Five minutes later, Wilson hung up. He rushed to the bathroom, overwhelmed by queasiness.

– –

Cuddy and Wilson stood in an anonymous, desolated hallway lit by blue neon lamps hanging from an immaculate ceiling. None of them was talking, they were just standing there, listening to the sound of death: voices echoing from exam rooms hidden by a wall three feet thick, where faceless people in white lab coats and masks examined the dead, momentarily stolen from their loved ones' care, an insensitive theft responsible for belated wakes and burials, a search for answers destined to remain floating in thin air until a sign or a revelation of some kind would answer the questions.

Those were doctors that didn't cure anybody. They were hopeless healers, stuck with death. Wilson felt chills down his spine. He was used to think he had chosen one especially sick field, as regarded the whole healing business. But at least he wasn't dealing with anything like that.

He flashed a glance at Cuddy, leaned back to the wall in front of where he stood. She looked devastated: black circles shadowing her eyes, an absent expression on her face, hands entwined, nervously squeezing one another. They had initially agreed on meeting at the hospital. Forensics had told them it was just a matter of signatures and they would have their friend's body back. Yet, here they were, waiting to put their names on a sheet that was not coming. Wilson started to get impatient. He was feeling sick in his stomach, the place was creeping the life out of him and he just wanted to get out of it as soon as he could. His stare met Cuddy's: she was still holding on, clinging to whatever strength remained inside her. Suddenly, she stood back up, as if she had decided she could make it without leaning to the cold wall, and she moved a few steps toward him.

"Wilson."

It took him a few seconds to realize someone was talking to him. He tried to overcome the nausea and focused on his friend, standing in front of him.

"Yes?"

"Talk to me."

He turned his head and escaped eye-contact. Again, he could not sustain her look, knowing how bad a person he was, pretending all was fine when he was feeling nothing but an empty, black hole where his soul once was. A jolt of nausea shook his chest, and he brought one hand to his stomach, the other to his mouth. He turned back to her, in denial.

"I'm fine. I'm..."

He had to quit talking, overwhelmed by some kind of silent realization. It was coming. Coming _up_ his body from the depths where he had it buried days earlier. Wilson felt a rush of feelings burning the walls of his veins. It was inexorable and tireless, it was real and painful and he instantly knew he couldn't fight it back. Cuddy saw his eyes glistening as he was feeling the tears burning behind them, itching in his nose, pushing to come out of the safe refuge where he had them buried in denial. Wilson turned back to Cuddy and saw the truth in her eyes. _House was gone. Forever._

She came closer and stroked his cheek, gently shaking her head. His eyelids covered the private pain in his eyes, as he tilted his head back to the wall and held out a low, trembling sob, followed by another one. And another one.

In no time, Wilson found himself sliding down to the floor: knees propped to his chest, he cried for endless minutes as Cuddy sat down beside him, staring pointedly at the neon lights that lit the hallway, never leaving Wilson's hand squeezing hers with a strength he wasn't even slightly aware of. She knew that was not the right time to say anything: wordlessly, she visualized House's smile in the dark of his bedroom, while he was beding down to meet her lips, the last night of his life.

Soon after, they went for the coroner's office.


	8. Omnes Moriturum Te Amant

– –

Chapter 8

**Omnes Moriturum Te Amant**

Even the sun had decided to hide behind a curtain of pale, thick clouds. The wind made the tree branches wave in the wet late-spring atmosphere and the grass of the graveyard released a fresh, unmistakable smell: one could tell it was going to rain very soon.

Wilson was standing beside Cuddy, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, staring fixedly at the four pall bearers, dressed in black suits, who were placing the casket into the grave. As they left, there was only the silent crowd filling the desolated yard with their presence.

Cuddy wrapped herself up in her dark gray satin stole, but her arms parting from her waist in that gesture made her feel even colder, as the breeze made its way underneath, even just for few seconds. She flipped her hair, lifting her stare up to the sky to take refuge from the painful sting the sight of House's dark wooden coffin sent to her chest. The white brightness of the rainy clouds made her screw her eyelids, as she brought a hand to her forehead to screen the light that was hitting her from above. She couldn't turn away from him: even the sky forced her sight downwards.

Cuddy closed her eyes for a second. Then, she was looking at him once again: two cyclamens rested on the wooden, inlaid lid of House's coffin. There was no other material sign that the man had been loved by anyone: only those flowers waving in the breeze, solitarily guarding his unwanted rest, as his two only friends once did with his twisted life.

Wilson had a look around, still trying to realize how many people had come to say goodbye: he couldn't count them.

The news of House's shocking death had spread all around, outside the hospital, outside Princeton and outside Jersey. The world-famous diagnostician meeting his cruel destiny in his own office, trying heroically to pull a kid from the brink of death, was a prey every newspaper had eaten at. It was the news of the day, something that would have faded into oblivion in no time, as another heartbreaking story would push House's death away from people's memories. They would buy tomorrow's New York Times and throw today's one in the waste paper bin, along with what was in it. Then, ten years later, someone would drive through Princeton and recall that was where this famous doctor had been killed by a junkie. Or was it Trenton?

He had expected to be there alone with Cuddy, House's mother and the team: instead, he met the glances of at least a hundred men and women from the silent crowd that had parted to let him, Cuddy and mrs. House pass as the funeral procession had reached its destination. At first he had just exchanged a surprised look with Cuddy, but it hadn't taken him too long to realize those were the people whose lives House had saved in the years he had spent being a pain in the ass to the medical community. Wilson recognized some of the most recent patients, people who had met House in the last months or weeks, while their lives were hanging on a thread and his genius was their last resort. Somehow, House had made his way to their hearts: they owed him something priceless, they where here for him. And that was amazing.

Somehow, Wilson raised a smile: House would have never admitted it, but his obsession was blessed: his patients would carry his memory with them forever. After all, that was much more than solving puzzles.

Cuddy flashed a glance at House's mother. The poor woman was beyond devastated, but she was holding on with the painful dignity she drew from being aware there was nothing she could to to bring her only son back. She had lost him many years before that moment: she never knew what was going on inside him, she'd never known. She had loved him for what he was: a difficult person, a twisted, tormented body wrapping a delicate soul that could break like glass in a thousand pieces. Blythe turned to Cuddy and looked at her with the utmost sweetness in her pale gray globes, so similar in their piercing power with those whose blue light Cuddy knew so well and truly missed. At that exact, same moment, she knew that House's mother was well aware of what she felt for the man they had lost. Blythe squeezed Cuddy's satin-clad forearm for a second, then she slowly walked to the grave and stood beside it in the wind, while the first raindrops hit the waving grass. Shortly after, House's two only friends joined his mother, followed by his team.

The funeral was over, what remained to be done was just for few. The crowd started to dissipate in the thin fog coming up from the wet terrain, as the rainfall grew stronger, soaking their trenchcoats and making them open their dark umbrellas.

The graveyard emptied, leaving House's friends, mother and colleagues to stand in a circle, guarding his grave, hoping to protect him from the world of the dead as they had always done during his long and troubled days on earth. Blythe's handful of soil was the first to cover her son's rest. With a lump blocking her airways, Cuddy swallowed the upcoming tears and bended over: the wet, warm sensation of the soil in her palm was talking to her about a closure she still had to find, she was not ready for. She had a hesitation, as if something more powerful than her longing for life were keeping her to stand up and pour the soil of a graveyard upon the body of the man she loved. She felt Wilson helping her up from behind, guiding her in the gesture her subconscious still refused. He held her hand in his and they did it together.

Then, they stood back and exchanged a look. They had agreed not to talk or anything during the service. They just felt it was too much, for them and for the person House was: they both could easily picture him mocking them for their sugar coated words of friendship and affection, trying to dismiss their sincerity.

When you're dead, everybody loves you.


	9. The Shape of Things to Come

– –

Chapter 9

**The Shape of Things to Come**

Gregory House had died unforeseeably at the age of 50 years, 11 months and 6 days, in the arms of the woman whose love he had sought and pushed away for two decades. Two months, one day and ten hours had passed since then, when Cuddy's doorbell rang, jolting her awake.

She sat up in her living room, which seemed to be melting in that mid-summer late afternoon. She grabbed an oversized, cottoned white t-shirt and slipped into it, walking barefoot to answer the door. Wilson stood at her doorstep. She raised a smile, then shifted aside to let him in.

He had a look around. The house was immersed in the shadows of the upcoming evening, the last sparkles of sunset penetrating the room in a hectic glare that had somehow found its way through the slight cleavage between the two disjointed curtains. It was silent all around. Wilson sat down on the couch. Two flutes full of red wine were placed on the coffee table.

"Where's Rachel?"

"With my sister. And my mother. And my nephews."

Wilson perceived the tension in her voice, coming from the hallway.

"Is everything ok?"

Cuddy closed the door and came to the living room. She grabbed a flute from the coffee table and collapsed on the couch beside her friend, her hands wrapped around the glass as if it were a cup of hot tea. She was shivering slightly, her stare fixed into the circles her movement had created in the previously motionless liquid. She slowly stared up at Wilson.

"Yeah. I just needed a little time off, they went to the sea."

Wilson frowned. He wasn't clearly buying it.

"We've already been over this. Like, thirty times and counting. Will you please stop holding things in?"

Cuddy put the glass back on the table and stood up. She started pacing the room nervously. then reached out at the wall and leaned on it, her arm stretched to touch the textured wallpaper, fixedly looking at it.

"They indeed went to the sea, Wilson. I didn't place my daughter in a dumpster or anything. I just needed some time alone."

"What for?"

"Is this an interrogation?"

She turned back at him, arms crossed on her chest. Wilson saw her lips turning slightly upwards in a sad smile. He stood up as well.

"Sort of. I'm going to torture you with my obnoxious questions until you stop pretending you're fine. The sooner you stop, the sooner I stop."

She finally released her breath and the smile dissipated.

"They want me to shut down House's department."

– –

When Cuddy closed the door behind Wilson, a couple of hours and a chinese take-away dinner later, she had to admit she was feeling a little better than before. Sharing the load of those frankly expectable news had considerably lifted the pound in her stomach. Diagnostics was over: without House, there was no point in keeping the department open. Foreman was a respected neurologist, and she realized she could just move him to where he belonged, make him Head of Neurology as soon as her former Head's retirement would be effective. That had been a stroke of luck: it seemed like timing was on her side. And Foreman's, too. Cuddy knew very well he would be more than happy to take over an entire department. Same be told as for Chase and Taub: working with House would open every door to any of his former team members, and she would make sure their references would reach the right people in the New Jersey medical community. Wherever each of them wanted to go, Cuddy would lead the way: they deserved it. _So Head-Bitch-In-Charge of me_, she thought.

And then there was Dr. Hadley. Who had completely disappeared the night of House's death. She had left him a letter of resignment from her position as a fellow team member and no one had seen her or heard from her since then. Cuddy had found the envelope the morning after, when she had come to take House's mail from his desk.

_She probably doesn't even know he's dead_.

Cuddy's thoughts slided back and forth between those desperate days and the present. After House's burial, she had felt the urge to go back to his apartment, which no one had entered since she had left, days before. Everything reminded her of the night they had their love out in the realm of professed feelings: the mess he had made in the bathroom, smashing the mirror against the wall, the shattered glass on the floor, the amber Vicodin bottle thrown in the sink. The two pills he had tossed away instants before kissing her.

His dirty clothes smelled of his skin, aftershave, sweat. Cuddy had taken his leather jacket in her hands and had squeezed it in an impossible, empty embrace, trying to feel his body in her arms. Nothing was filling the shape of the jacket. No one was in it. She had collapsed on the bed, curled up in the mess they had made with the sheets and blanket, flavoring the scent their entwined bodies had left on the clean, fresh cotton.

The sight of the abandoned receiver hanging from the nightstand called her back to the painful reality. Holding House's beat-up black leather jacket in her satin clad arms, curled up on herself as a helpless child, Cuddy had cried her heart out over the utter unfairness of life. It was different from her breakdown in front of Marina, which had come completely unexpected. That was the release of a trauma, the shock of the events taking over eventually, after the signatures and the paperwork and House's body being carried away in a plastic bag. These, instead, were the tears of reflection, the tears of reason, the ones she had to keep hidden, secretly swallowing them when her daughter was around or when she was at work. These were the tears spilling from the conscience of what had happened to House and to her and to Wilson. This death was more real now that he lied underneath six feet of soil and a gravestone with his name engraved on it. He was gone forever and nothing would bring him back to her. These tears came from far far beyond trauma or shock: they came from the deepest part of her reasoning mind.

Cuddy came back to her dark living room.

* * *

Wilson took a seat in the first row at the right side of the podium, dropping his leather briefcase on the floor beside him. The hospital's auditorium was filling with people in white coats and briefcases very similar to his. But he felt sure he was the only one with a lump in his throat at the thought of the upcoming vote. Cuddy had called a board meeting: the closedown of the Diagnostic Medicine Department had to be put to the vote. She had joined the Teaching and the Administration committees to make a decision, and they had diverging interests in the department.

Cuddy stood in the middle of the dispute: as the Dean of Medicine, she had to preserve the diversity of the teaching offer to the Med school students, and she had to do that on behalf of Princeton University, whose interest was clearly to keep Diagnostics open and active. As the Chief of Administration, though, she could not help but aknowledge the department was no more an economical asset to the hospital: many of House's patients used to make donations, and the uncountable awards he had won for his work – which he used to dismiss and never care about – had made his little world very rich. But he had needed those money to keep up with new technology both in diagnostics and surgery, and the expenses of the department had reached and often passed the limits of its yet considerable income. Cuddy knew very well it had to be over: even saving Diagnostics for the sake of the many medical students and the good an internship there would have done to some of them, even that would be useless. Because the answer to the dilemma was so simple she had to recognize there was no dilemma: there was no point in keeping open a department she had created from scratch to fit the needs of an irreplaceable physician.

House was gone and so his sanctuary would be soon.

Cuddy wore her pearly necklace and adjusted the black suit jacket over her cottoned pink blouse. She turned back to the wall mirror in her office and had a look at herself: she needed to look steady and perfect, more to reassure herself she was doing the right thing, than for the others to see who was in charge. And she was. She had worn the same outfit when she had been called for examination in court, four years earlier, when she had lied, committed perjury to save him from jail. She raised a sad smile at the thought of his upset expression when he had realized she was not going to sell him out: she hadn't even thought about that for a moment. And now all was different.

Cuddy left her office and walked to the auditorium, heels tapping on the clean floor at the rhythm of her thoughts. What was she doing to House? She was a perjurer, and not because she had lied to a judge in a cold winter day some time earlier. She was a perjurer because she had vowed to herself and him that she would not take any other side than his, ever. And now she was about to erase his memory from the hospital he had made famous all over the world, spending his life there while she

tried her best not to do the same, mostly failing. Still, she had gotten a life and he hadn't. He had died in that hospital while she was asleep in bed, as always reaching him when it was too late to save him: she had come too late ten years earlier and she had made him crippled. She had come too late when he was abusing the same substances she had prescribed him to avoid him the pain she was responsible for, and he had ended up in an isolation room, hallucinating. She had come late to tell him she loved him and they had four hours of happiness.

Cuddy had always been late for House.

By the time she crossed the threshold to the auditorium, the Dean of Medicine had made her final decision.

Wilson lifted his stare to the ceiling and closed his eyes for a moment, hoping whatever was about to happen in there would be over as soon as possible. When he looked down at the door, Cuddy was coming in, holding a file she soon placed on the top of the podium, adjusting the microphone so that everyone could hear her words. The board members were seated at both her sides: the teaching committee facing administration people, doctors and researchers facing lawyers and economists in a silent fight of eyes and brains. Cuddy cleared her throat and her voice came out as steady as she had wished for.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the Teaching Committee and the Coordinating Group for Medical Programmes, members of the Administration board, I would like to thank you for gathering here today. I hereby declare this plenary assembly open."

The people in the auditorium started clapping hands. Wilson had another look around and saw none of the seats had remained empty: the closedown of Diagnostics was today's news, everybody wanted to witness the fall of the temple now as much as everybody had admired and envied House's work and hated the man back in the days. Wilson felt as the only bearer of his friend's good memory and at that exact, same moment, he hated each one of them, standing there as punters in a bet, to assist the euthanization of the maybe one good thing House had created in his life. He conveyed his hatred on them as much they had hated his best friend, but just a bit more.

Cuddy went on, grabbing the edge of the wooden podium with both hands and bending over to the microphone.

"There is one thing this hospital is, among all the others: it is a teaching institution. A place devoted to the promotion of knowledge. The high standards of taught and research degree programmes and the quality of students' academic experience in Princeton are enriched by the quality we provide here as a School of Medicine whose fame is aknowledged worldwide. We, as doctors _and_ teachers" Cuddy emphasized the connection "give our contribution to form tomorrow's doctors and teachers on a daily basis made of hands-on experiences that we offer to the people who will be working across the Nation in ten years."

She paused and flashed a glance at the public. The committees were frozen in their seats. Wilson believed to know where Cuddy was headed. And he liked it.

"Today we are here to put to the vote the closedown of the Department of Diagnostic Medicine by request of the Administration board, in order to redirect the funds to other components of the hospital. Since this matter regards all the hospital components, I invite the public to assist to the open polls. I will be calling each member of both committees to record their presence officially, then we will proceed with the voting. For the Teaching Committee and the Coordinating Group for Medical Programmes: doctor Hourani, doctor Simpson, doctor Ayersman..." The men seated beside Wilson nodded at Cuddy, who went on. "Doctor Cheng, nurse Previn, doctor Wilson." She flashed a significant glare at her friend.

"For the Administration board: mister Senford Wells, mister Simon Potter, miss Dana Johnson, mister John Frazer, mister John Dale, miss Debrah Ross."

Nobody released a breath in the whole auditorium. Wilson wished Cuddy would not get cold feet, but the look in her eyes told him she was not going to. Her stubbornness had made its way till there: it was all irrational, but he knew she would not betray House's memory even though they were both well aware of the fact that the result was predictable. Cuddy could pull out of her sleeve her best speech ever, but nothing could save Diagnostics, because there was nothing to be saved: everybody knew that, even those whose membership in the Teaching committee would tell them to vote against the closedown. For the hundredth time, Wilson repeated the sentence in his own mind: there was no point in that now that _he_ was gone. They voted.

Three months, fourteen days and seven hours after House's death, while the floor janitor scraped away his name from the glass door of his former office, Wilson and Cuddy slipped through the automatic doors at the main entrance of the hospital and came out the sun of August, holding the certainty that their hands, and them alone, had not raised against their friend's memory.

– –


	10. Good Things Come To Those Who Wait

Chapter 10

**Good Things Come To Those Who Wait**

* * *

"I'm here!"

Wilson rushed inside Cuddy's office, busting the door open. He was carrying a huge bag which he dropped to the floor, then he just collapsed on the sofa, bringing his hands to his sweaty forehead and breathing heavily. _Panting_, actually.

"I'm here." He repeated, his voice dying away.

Cuddy couldn't help but hide a smile. She turned her face from him, so he couldn't see her expression. She recomposed, then spoke back.

"It's ok, Wilson. I guess I'll be alone in this anyway. Nice to have you here, though. If you manage to behave."

He flashed her a terrified glance. Cuddy had to hide the grin. Poor boy.

She leaned against the edge of her desk with both hands and stood to her feet. Wilson stood up as well and grabbed the bag. He led their way out and placed a hand on her shoulder as they crossed the threshold.

"Let's go then."

They came out in the lobby and everybody was _so_ smiling at them. Cuddy felt a little awkward as she walked through the bright hallway, illuminated by the cold, blinding light of wintertime: it was snowing outside, and the white powder pouring from the skies was slowly covering all of her pain and the restless sorrow of having House taken away from her forever.

Ten miles from there, his gravestone was covering in white as well, in a deserted yard filled with the invisible presence of hearts that had been warm with feelings and blood, but were now nothing more than what the love of the living made them be. That was what Cuddy was thinking about, while she walked through the halls of her hospital beside Wilson.

She had come to terms with missing House. She missed every cell and drop of blood of him and she was not doing a thing to change that. Missing him was what she lived for.

She eventually reached her destination. Wilson opened the door for her and placed the bag on a wooden, warm-nuanced dresser. He turned back at his friend leaned on the threshold, smiling. He hadn't seen her smile a lot, lately, so he didn't know how to feel about that. He shyly smiled back. Cuddy came in and sat on the edge of the mattress. At that time of day, Rachel was probably having her drawing class at preschool. She loved drawing. She had patched all the walls in their house with her artwork. Cuddy remembered by heart each of her drawings: she had taken one from the little girl's bedroom and folded it in her wallet.

That morning, like any other, she had planted a kiss on her cheek before waving her hand as the child ran to her classmates. Cuddy knew things would have been so different when she would have seen her again. She raised her stare up to the ceiling and her eyes filled with the image of House unveiling the secret, rare smile he kept secluded in his sky-blue irises, just for her. But then she lowered her eyes down to reality and saw the concern and expectation in the eyes of her best friend, standing in front of her. That was real, as what was about to happen.

Wilson was there with her and he was trying his best at being cute, late-ness included. That was him. House's secret smile faded from her sight and she felt she didn't need to visualize it to know it would always be with her.

Cuddy grabbed her purse and found Rachel's drawing. A prince with an oversized crown was holding hands with a girl with a giant necklace dangerously resemblant to a stethoscope. She slowly shook her head, raising a smile, and placed the piece of paper on the nightstand. She turned back at Wilson, who was massaging his temples.

"Hey. You gonna pass out now?"

He stared up at her.

"I guess I'll wait for you to spill the first drop of blood."

But in the end he wouldn't. He would stand by her when it would be time. Cuddy giggled at his awkwardness, still knowing he would not miss that moment for anything. He stood up and helped her change her clothes. A nurse came and took her temperature and blood pressure. When she left them alone, Wilson hooked Cuddy to the IV and rubbed her back, telling stories and being his-oh-so-messy-self for hours, until the sun came down, leaving a snowy Princeton to snooze its way through that winter night.

"Once more. Come on."

Wilson's voice came out in a soft, sweet whisper. Cuddy stared up at him, her eyes glistening with tears of pain and expectation. That moment, she was hit by House's absence for one painful, last time. She felt his head in her lap, she saw his blood wetting her scrubs in the blood she was now spilling on the immaculate bedsheets. Everybody in the room was smiling at her. She felt the paradox and released all of the tension.

Closing her eyes, Cuddy squeezed Wilson's hand for the last time. She had come to terms with missing House. She had missed every cell and drop of blood of him and she hadn't done a thing to change that. Missing him was what she had lived for.  
_Till then._

She pushed.

Eight months, two weeks, four days and about twelve hours after House's eyes had seen their last ray of light, his baby daughter came into this world with that same piercing blue stare.

* * *

"_Ashes to ashes_

_and dust to dust _

_that's what has become _

_of our love and trust _

_Love has no direction _

_cause love has no aim _

_love can leave you _

_as fast as she came _

_Meeting is such sweet sorrow _

_cause someday we may have to part _

_hush don't you make a sound _

_you're gonna let me down _

_Good things come _

_to those who wait _

_but good things are gone _

_from those who are late _

_All that I am _

_is all I can give _

_but with or without you _

_my life I must live _

_Meeting is such sweet sorrow _

_cause someday we may have to part _

_hush don't you make a sound _

_you're gonna let me down _

_Living ain't easy _

_since you've been gone _

_no one else can please me _

_or make me feel home _

_Forgetting ain't easy _

_you stay on my mind _

_thoughts of us haunt me _

_can't leave them behind."_

Ben Harper "Ashes" - The Will To Live – 1997

– – –

**The End**


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